Conference-ville

by Frank Moorhouse

Entertaining and always surprising stories from Frank Moorhouse.

'I found my way to the seat in the empty auditorium . . . I wondered who would sit with me. A bit like school days . . . Throughout the auditorium people are connecting, making their alliance, for personal security, sexual possibility, eating-drinking alliances, affirmations that we do not sit alone in the world. But there are also those who come alone, wear their name tag and seem to know no one and to meet no one. A few people come to talk with me. No one sits with me.'

As the conference participants settle in with their name tags and satchels, as they sort out amongst themselves their seating arrangements and gently jostle for positions at the bar bistro, as they brace themselves for the first confrontation between opposing factions, award-winning writer Frank Moorhouse wryly observes the subtle shifts in their allegiances and pretensions.

Using this neat microcosmic device to fullest advantage, Moorhouse shrewdly explores the limitations of Australian intellectual life and, as in The Americans, Baby and The Electrical Experience, displays his brilliant grasp of social interplay.

Genres: Australia

127 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Frank Thomas Moorhouse AM (21 December 1938 – 26 June 2022) was an Australian writer. He won major Australian national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay, and for script writing. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States and also translated into German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Serbian, and Swedish.

Moorhouse was perhaps best known for winning the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, Dark Palace; which together with Grand Days and Cold Light, the "Edith Trilogy" is a fictional account of the League of Nations, which trace the strange, convoluted life of a young woman who enters the world of diplomacy in the 1920s through to her involvement in the newly formed International Atomic Energy Agency after World War II.

The author of 18 books, Moorhouse became a full-time fiction writer during the 1970s, also writing essays, short stories, journalism and film, radio and TV scripts.

In his early career he developed a narrative structure which he has described as the 'discontinuous narrative'. He lived for many years in Balmain, where together with Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes, he became part of the "Sydney Push" - an anti-censorship movement that protested against rightwing politics and championed freedom of speech and sexual liberation. In 1975 he played a fundamental role in the evolution of copyright law in Australia in the case University of New South Wales v Moorhouse. - Wikipedia

Reviews

[Eddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and unique political backdrop. Basically a bunch of funny musings on political expression and action within academia. Maintained a light tone with material that easily could have become dry. It feels like a big update from a friend, conversational and revealing but packed with wit. I like Frank Moorhouse but I was under the impression that he is gay yet after this autofiction I’m now hoping he’s bisexual. Would be quite gagged if he was straight. He has the lameness but he’s such a bitch too. I could look it up but I don’t want to be disappointed. If fruity, Frank, get in touch. You seem perfectly easy going and like you only hate your friends when someone tells you why you should but you’d never see the negative by yourself unless it was towards yourself? Idk that seems like a personal statement I’d just like to talk.

[Scott Cleggett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting snapshot of political and academic society during the immediate post-Whitlam years. Interesting to follow the journey of the writers thoughts as the book progresses, with a few witty remarks mixed in. Decent read, 10 page chapters make it perfect for reading on the bus.

[Kris McCracken · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slice of life among the Australian academic and political amidst the turmoil of the Whitlam dismissal. An interesting snapshot of a time that seems far, far away... B.

[Luke McCarthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very slim and slight. Barely feels like a novel (the way some chapters refer back to previous interactions/characters makes me feel that this was perhaps a collection of short fiction that was turned into something larger). A kind of auto-fictional document of Moorehouse attending some sort of academic conference. Quite funny at times. Moorehouse is very good at digging into the reflective, self-lacerating mood that certain political spaces can cultivate. His character is always reacting instinctually, then questioning where this reaction places them on the political spectrum (then reassuring himself that it’s probably nothing). Enjoyed the minor conspiracy which was threaded throughout. Great scene where a group of radical videographers (?) show the group of ‘elites’ in attendance a video of themselves to try and shake them out of their bourgeois affectations, only for Moorehouse to see himself in the video and realise, in horror, that it looks like he is “fawning” around a particular magazine editor. Overall a bit too short and wispy to make much of an impression. I also found the prose to be a bit clunky. Lots of statements without much connective tissue; possibly over-edited.

Finished in bed.